Gallery Four: Three Gorges Migrants Through the Lens of Li Feng
From spontaneous photo shoots on exposed riverbanks to sleeping outside in order to chase away wild pigs, life continues for Three Gorges migrants.
Students from the Qu Yuan Primary School in Zigui County row a dragon boat to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival in May 2015.
In May 2015, a local road is blocked by landslides due to heavy storms. Dozens of villagers in Miaohe, of Zigui County, rush to the scene to repair the damaged road.
Early one morning in August 2015, at the top of Wuxia Mountain in Badong County, Xiang Changfang rises from her outdoor bed. Fifteen years ago, her family had been relocated from the riverside and resettled on higher ground, where they counted wild pigs among their new neighbours. Xiang Changfang had to sleep outdoors in order to chase away the wild pigs that would come to steal the corn.
On October 1, 2015, Liu Minghua waits for his children (who work away from home) to come back for the holidays (National Day) by the Yangtze River in Nanmuyuan of Badong County.
The family of an old and seriously ill migrant, charter a boat to take him to the hospital in the county seat of Badong in Hubei Province. Although, local people in many places were able to access the highway network and high-speed rails, some living in the reservoir area still had to travel by boat. This photograph was taken in October 2015.
Two people bathing a horse near the dam site of the Three Gorges project in March 2016.
Liu Dongmei, in her 50s, took her twin granddaughters back to the wharf in Taipingxi of Yiling District in April 2016. Liu’s old home there had been demolished for the construction of the big dam. Her twin granddaughters were only 4 years old at the time and had no idea their grandmother's house had once existed on this site. They see a new Three Gorges for the first time.
On June 9, 2016, several migrant "netizens" take pictures and stream live video in the Kuimen area of Qutang Gorge in the Three Gorges Reservoir area, where their homeland had been flooded by the rising reservoir a dozen or so years ago. The riverbank is exposed because the dam authorities always lower the reservoir level from 175 meters to 145 meters in June of each year to create space for flood control.
A very happy fisherman delights in his large haul from a small reservoir near the Three Gorges Reservoir in Zigui County, in November 2016.
In June 2017, after disappearing for several years, boat trackers return as tourism picks up again.
In September 2017, a migrant prepares to carry a large and fat pig down the mountain to sell at a local market in the old county seat of Badong.
A passenger ship is dismantled for steel, which will be sold in the Meirentuo area of Yiling District. Dating back to early 2015, all long-distance passenger ships stopped running in the reservoir area. To replace them, highways and high-speed railways were made ready for operation in the Three Gorges Reservoir area that year. This photograph was taken in January 2018.
On June 26, 2019, the old Daxi Town site at the Qutang Gorge in Wushan County was exposed when the water level of the reservoir was lowered to 155 metres. Liu Hua, a 60-year-old migrant, stands on the site of the old village where he had lived for decades, playing drums for practice. A little later, he and his team would go to the other side of the river by ferry to participate in an event celebrating his friend's move to a new home.